Brazil recently approved CoronaVac, the vaccine made by Beijing-based pharmaceutical firm Sinovac, thereby enabling Latin America’s largest nation to begin its immunization program.
CoronaVac has demonstrated 100 percent protection against severe COVID-19 and hospitalization in the recently-concluded clinical trials involving 12,476 healthcare workers in Brazil.
The trials are currently the only publicly disclosed phase 3 clinical trial involving COVID-19 vaccines, where participants were all healthcare workers deployed in hospitals.
Accordingly, it provides an actual indication of the capability of this vaccine to protect the critical healthcare workforce.
Chile has likewise given emergency use approval for CoronaVac.
Sinovac has agreements in place with at least eight countries, including Turkey, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Chile, and Brazil.
In the Philippines, CoronaVac was recently granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration of the Philippines and the Department of Health’s Single Joint Research Ethics Board to conduct clinical trials.
Sponsored and financed by IP Biotech, Inc., the study will be a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial conducted on volunteers aged 60 to 80 years.